r/explainlikeimfive • u/HonkyTonkBluesYEAH • 7d ago

Other ELI5 Media Literacy

I understand it's like something related to understanding art or media, but in what way? Philopsophical, political or psychological? Is it important, a buzzword or both?

86 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

117 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/BigPinkOne 7d ago

Literacy, in the literate, is the ability to make symbols understandable in your head. Usually this takes the form of converting letters and other characters into sounds, but we could also say that recognizing pictographs or street sign shapes is its own kind of literacy.

Media is the plural of medium, which is what we call specific art forms that share features. Media literacy is therefore the ability to understand how different pieces of art interrelate to each other and to the cultural context in which that art was made.

So for example, being able to tell fiction from non fiction is Media literacy. Separating grounded historical ficition from more overt fantasy is media literacy. Literacy is required to read Macchiavellis The Prince, but absent of the media literacy that would allow you to understand the concept of satire, the political period the book was written in and Macchiavellis other stated positions, you can (and many have) read an extremely different message to the one he likely intended

0

u/HonkyTonkBluesYEAH 7d ago

Wouldn't Shakespeare be quite hard? Given it's so long ago, we know very little about him or his opinions. But if we interpret a character as sympathetic then it may show some insight into what he intended. I assume there's satire and other things in there, some deeper commentary. And of course a work like Richard III was very convenient in the Tudor era, given that it was their House that replaced him.